Gareth Bale has set his sights on emulating Cristiano Ronaldo as one of the world’s best players after scoring a contender for goal of the season.

The Tottenham winger struck a brilliant equaliser to rescue a point for his team in last night’s 1-1 draw at Norwich and then revealed he had been modelling his game on that of the Real Madrid star.

Bale has been linked with a move to the Spanish giants in the summer and while he admits he has some way to go to match Ronaldo, the Welshman’s playing style and free-kick technique are becoming increasingly similar to those of the Portuguese.

“You put your targets high,” Bale told Standard Sport.

“The way Ronaldo plays, he’s the best all-round player in the world. People have said things in the past and the stuff he does is similar to what I do.

“He is a benchmark for every player who wants to be that good and it’s useful to look at other players, watch how they do things and take my game to another level.

“Look at the way he takes free-kicks — he scores a lot of goals from them. He is obviously doing something right and he is on another level. Can I get there? One day. He’s one of the players who we all try to match. Apart from Lionel Messi, Ronaldo is on a different planet and I’d love to be half as good as him.”

Apart from Bale’s 80th-minute goal, Spurs were helped by an impressive debut from Lewis Holtby, who came as a second-half substitute, but their first-half performance was poor and Norwich deserved their lead at the interval, achieved through Wes Hoolahan’s 32nd-minute goal.

£80m man on a different planet

Gareth Bale certainly isn’t short of confidence. Tottenham’s star man believes he can one day emulate the world’s most expensive player, Cristiano Ronaldo.

There’s no denying Bale’s brilliance for Spurs over the last few seasons but he still has some way to go to match the £80million man. As the Welshman says, Ronaldo is on “different planet”. The former Manchester United man has scored an incredible 179 goals in 177 games since his move to the Bernabeu.